Publisher's Synopsis
A phantom is an illusion, an illusion or a delusion. It cannot be grasped or proven, but it seems to be present. It is the same with the idea of dividing humanity into races. The race concept is an artificial and visually powerful system of order. It doesn't exist in nature, but it works as a social reality. The construction of races is the result of racism, not its foundation. Race ideas and racial images, which have been reproduced in science, politics and everyday life for centuries, combine physical characteristics with social and cultural patterns and claim to be able to assign people so clearly. The fact that the chosen criteria change at random is not visible in these images. This volume brings together analytical essays and interviews on the past and present of the racial idea as well as excerpts from relevant texts on the theory of racism. It thus documents the variety of possible interpretations of a phantom from different methodological, disciplinary and theoretical perspectives.
